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Huawei Mate 8 Review: Big and bold

The Huawei Mate 8 provides solid performance and excellent battery life at an appealing price point.

Huawei’s positioning in the mobile phone space is pretty well established, with the vast majority of its phones fitting in the budget and mid-range spaces. The Mate line is Huawei’s stab at a "premium" phone, but like its siblings it keeps a focus on affordability relative to the rest of the premium pack.

Huawei Mate 8

OS

Android 6.0 ("Marshmallow")

Screen size

6in

Resolution

1080x1920

Display density

368ppi

Storage

32/64GB

Weight

185g

Processor

Octa-core Kirin 950

Rear camera

16MP

Front camera

8MP

Battery

4000mAh

Upsides: Why you’d want the Huawei Mate 8

Nearly bezel-free: The Huawei Mate 8’s design doesn’t rely on having a thick bezel around its 6 inch screen. Instead, the display wraps to just about the edge of the phone itself. This is visually pleasing, but also means it’s easier to grip the Mate 8 in one hand while in use, which isn’t always the case for 6-inch screen phones.

Good application performance: The Huawei Mate 8 uses Huawei’s own Kirin 950 processor rather than a more stock processor from MediaTek or Qualcomm. Running on Android 6.0, the Mate 8 is generally highly responsive, and this is also reflected in benchmarks. Using Geekbench’s cross-platform benchmark suite, the Mate 8 shows solid performance against a range of premium handsets:

Handset

Geekbench 3 Single Core (higher is better)

Geekbench 3 Multi Core (higher is better)

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

2169

6446

Samsung Galaxy S7

2156

6240

Huawei Mate 8

1738

6092

LG G5

2305

5243

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

1492

4893

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge

1324

4626

Google Nexus 6P

1251

4597

Samsung Galaxy S6

1347

4569

Apple iPhone SE

2538

4455

Apple iPhone 6S

2540

4410

Apple iPhone 6S Plus

2491

4391

HTC 10

1942

4191

Sony Xperia Z5

1358

4134

Samsung Galaxy Note 5

1111

3686

BlackBerry PRIV

1196

3396

Great battery life: One of the advantages of larger phone bodies is that you can cram more batteries in the body of the phone. Like other unibody phones like the HTC 10 or iPhone 6S, the Mate 8’s battery is non-removable. However, it’s a hefty 4,000mAh unit, so testing using Geekbench’s battery test with screen dimming enabled, the Mate 8 showed itself as a very capable performer:

Handset

Geekbench 3 Battery Test Duration

Geekbench 3 Battery Score

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

11:55:00

7150

Huawei Mate 8

11:14:40

6659

Samsung Galaxy S7

10:01:20

6013

Samsung Galaxy Note 5

9:18:00

5580

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

8:24:10

5041

LG Stylus DAB+

8:11:40

3278

Apple iPhone 6S Plus

7:48:10

4681

LG G5

7:36:10

4561

Alcatel Go Play

7:21:10

2941

iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case

7:21:10

4407

Google Nexus 5X

7:14:20

4062

Oppo R7s

7:00

2800

HTC 10

6:54:30

4145

Only the exceptional Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge outperformed the Huawei Mate 8 in battery life, and that’s a phone with a specific asking price much higher than that of the Mate 8.

Fast fingerprint sensor: The days when the good fingerprint sensors were only found on Apple products are well and truly over. The Mate 8’s circular fingerprint sensor resides on the rear of the phone, and it responds very quickly indeed.

Decent camera: The Huawei Mate 8’s 16MP camera performs well for most photographic situations. Predictably it does suffer in low light, and it’s not quite the best camera we’ve tested on a smartphone this year, but for most purposes it will respond quickly and with generally pleasing results.

Downsides: Why you might not want the Huawei Mate 8

Display is mid-range at best: 2016’s premium phones all tend towards QHD display screens, but the Huawei Mate 8 sticks with a plain old 1080p display instead. That probably saves it some battery power, but put it side by side with a richer display and the differences are quite noticeable.

Ordinary gaming performance: For general processing tasks the Kirin 950 performs well, but where it stumbles somewhat is when you throw games its way. We noticed some stuttering in gameplay compared to other premium handsets, and this was borne out by the Mate 8’s anaemic 3DMark scores. Here’s how it compares against a range of handsets:

Handset

3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Result

LG G5

29597

Apple iPhone SE

29276

Samsung Galaxy S7

28903

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

28402

Apple iPhone 6s

28171

HTC 10

27392

Google Nexus 6P

24703

Sony Xperia Z5

19197

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus

17981

Huawei Mate 8

17947

Emotion UI is an acquired taste: Most Android phone makers have been shifting towards very light makeovers of recent Android OS releases, but that’s not Huawei’s way. It’s not quite the full rework of Android that Oppo applies to its phones, but it’s pretty close, with no app drawer and a range of shiny effects overlaid on common UI elements. Some may find these cute, but heavier Android users will most likely find them annoying.

Who is it best suited for? What are my other options?

The Huawei Mate 8 isn’t without its drawbacks in the fiercely contested premium space, but the essential core of what Huawei’s offering here is essentially solid. If you’re interested in a premium experience without the $1,000+ price point that other premium handsets attract, it’s well worth considering.

In the larger screen phone arena you do have quite a lot of choice. Currently we’d say that Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge sits on top of the pack, although if you’re more budget constrained its large screen Galaxy Note 5 is also worth consideration. If you’re in a more constrained budget space, consider LG’s Stylus DAB+ or Oppo’s R9 Plus.

Where can I get it?

Local retailers no longer stock the Huawei Mate 8, but you can still import the handset from overseas retailers like eBay and Amazon.

Huawei Mate 9 from DWI (Digital World International)

Huawei's Mate 9 offers up a powerful processor, an excellent camera, fast fingerprint access and currently sits at number 3 on the list of finder's favourite songs.

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